Unevolved: A Study in Diverse Christian Social Organization Open Access
Boyles, John (2016)
Abstract
Despite an increased acceptance of diverse theological views among earliest Christians after Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy early in the 20th century, the general model that lurks in the background of most discussions around the organization of early Christian communities remains monolithic. Though scholars show an increased willingness to discuss pockets of individual communities, such as the Johnannine community or the Pauline communities, and so display a willingness to engage the texts on their own terms, when the large-scale portrait of Christian origins comes into view, the model scholarship falls back on remains that of the era of Adolf Harnack and Rudolph Sohm. There is an original egalitarian organization that has its origins in the Jesus movement and continues into the early Pauline communities. Gradually, this egalitarianism ossifies into proto-catholic hierarchy before becoming the full on institutionalism of the three-fold ministry. This dissertation questions this viewpoint, proposing instead that the earliest Christian communities shaped their communities by drawing upon their own experiences and resources in their world to outline and fulfill the functions they found to be necessary and important in their lives. For this reason, their community organization was diverse from the beginning rather than monolithic as their contexts and needs were diverse. The first chapter reviews the problem and its history. The second chapter utilizes literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence to paint the broader picture of social groups in the ancient Mediterranean world, such as religious, cultural, immigrant, and political groups, as well as social clubs and even the Roman military. This picture clearly evinces that human social forms in the ancient world were quite fluid. Then, each of the third, fourth, and fifth chapters situates an early Christian texts (1 Corinthians, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Didache) within the ancient Mediterranean world by reading them with careful attention to their social functions and the forms they utilize in accomplishing these functions. As first and second-generation texts,1 Corinthians and Matthew indicate alternative manifestations of Christian community. The Didache, a later text, displays that these varied earlier forms have not elided into a uniform phenomenon but rather varied occasions have summoned various forms and functions. These three texts, then, show that a single line of evolutionary development cannot be drawn and a monolithic view of early Christian social organization cannot be held.
Table of Contents
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
CHAPTER 1 THE PROBLEM OF A UNIFORM, DEVELOPMENTAL
MODEL FOR EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES 1
Problems in Popular and Scholarly Understandings 1
A Challenge from the Didache 2
Obscuring Interpretations of the Didache 3
The Goals of the Dissertation 6
The Story of Orthodoxy: Christian Origin Myths 6
Patristic Interpretation 8
The Reformation and the Establishment of Two Origins Myths 9
Attempts to Move Beyond the Two Origins Myths and F. C. Baur's
Revival of the Protestant Myth 1
Arguments from the Ancient Mediterranean Milieu 14
Adolf Harnack, Rudolph Sohm, and the Didache 17
Outliers to the New Consensus and Recent Proposals 19
The State of the Field Today 25
An Outline of the Dissertation 27
CHAPTER 2 THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN MILIEU 29
The Fluidity of Ancient Mediterranean Associations 29
Modern Study of the Associations 29
The Nature of the Evidence 37
Examples of Each Type of Evidence 38
Unanswered Questions 45
On Genetic Relationships and The Imposition of Missing Data 46
The Breakdown of Taxonomies 52
Summary: The Understanding and Misunderstanding of Associations 54
Association, Function, and a Way Forward 57
Function Over Taxonomy 57
Functions as Building Blocks 59
The Ancient Synagogue: A Test Case 72
Functions of the Synagogue 72
Functionaries of the Synagogue 76
Summary - Functions and the Synagogue 82
Conclusions - A Functional Analysis of Associations 83
CHAPTER 3 FIRST CORINTHIANS 86
A Methodological Note 87
Critical Questions 89
Authorship 91
Date 89
The Compositional Integrity of First Corinthians 92
The Communities of Corinth 98
Applying the Four Functions 102
Regular Meetings 102
Membership Management 127
Resource Management 140
Public Relations 144
A Community Sketch At Corinth 145
Functionaries and Offices 146
Summary 149
CHAPTER 4 MATTHEW 151
Introduction 151
Richard Bauckham's Gospels for All Christians 153
Genre, Allegory, and Context 156
Early Christian Leadership 162
Date 171
Provenance 178
Applying the Four Functions 184
Membership Management 184
Resource Management 199
Regular Meetings 204
Public Relations 209
A Community Sketch 212
Leadership within the Matthean Community 214
Forbidden Titles and the Role of Peter 222
Summary and Conclusion 224
CHAPTER 5 THE DIDACHE 227
Introduction: Critical Issues of the Didache 227
Date 231 Provenance 234
Source and Redaction Critical Readings 239
Applying the Four Functions 245
Member Initiation and Management of Membership 245
Regular Meetings 251
Resource Management 257
Public Relations 264
Summary 266
A Community Sketch 267
Time 267
Roles and Authority 278
Summary and Conclusion 293
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION 296
Evolutionary Development 296
Corinth 296
Matthew 398
The Didache 299
Increasing Specificity of Roles 301
Inscriptions and Papyri - Table 1 306
Architectural Evidence - Table 2 374
Literary Evidence - Table 3 388
BIBLIOGRAPHY 405
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